Archive for the ‘Twitter Advice’ Category

Before we catapult into 21 century communications, let’s hop in a time machine together and enjoy a little flashback…

1450’s: first printing press.
1660’s: first American newspaper printed.
1830’s: first electric telegraph and Morse Code invented.
1870’s: first electric telephone.
1910’s: first radio with tuners.
1930’s: first TV broadcast in the United States.
1970’s: first cell phone network in the United States.
1990’s: Internet is commercialized.
2004: Facebook launched.
2006: Twitter launched publicly.2012: people get frustrated with all the social media platforms.

Sure, you don’t have to use Twitter. It’s not a must for anyone.

But… take a look at that communications technology timeline above. None of those methods of spreading a message hadto be used. But those that chose to use them, communicated their message to many more people than those that didn’t.

Twitter is no different. Here’re some tips to use it effectively.

Photo Credit: Shawn Campbell via Compfight

1. Grow Your Following

In order for your tweets to go somewhere, someone must see them.

*Follow likeminded people. Once you’ve found and followed a few people doing similar things you do, look at their friend list and follow some of their friends.*Follow the giants. Follow a few popular tweeters in your genre and learn how they tweet. There’s a reason they’re popular on Twitter: learn from them.*Follow the newbies. All it takes is a few fans to start spreading the word.

2. Crafting Your Tweet

Twitter limits your Tweets to 140 characters. That’s roughly one short sentence. Make it count.

*Make it sharable.Your goal is crafting something your followers will want to pass on to their followers.

Good: “Definition of Monday: the best and only way to start a great work week! Cheers!”
Bad: “Another crappy Monday. Bleh. I wish it were Friday. Oh well…”

*Keep it positive. It won’t be sharable if it’s negative. No one likes a complainer in real life, and we certainly don’t like a complainer on Twitter.*Sell rarely. Look through your last twenty tweets. In how many of them are you promoting yourself, your blog, your product? If the majority of what you’re doing is self-promotion, then you’re the person at the party that only talks about himself.

*Tweet one: a greeting.
*Tweet two: a link to your blog or something you offer.
*Tweet three: a retweet or a share of someone else’s content.

The key is balance. Too much of one type of message is b-o-r-i-n-g.

4. Relationship Rules

Build relationship. Build relationship. Build relationship.

Retweet content from people you follow and @mention them. They’ll appreciate it. Similarly, if someone retweets your content, thank them.Reply to tweets with questions and/or content you find interesting. Twitter is meant to be a conversation.Remember your audience. It’s a good idea to think of a specific person when tweeting. Compose your tweet for them and to them.

You visited the Facebook or Twitter page of a business that had a moderate following on one day, yet upon visiting a few days later, their likes/followers increased exponentially with no apparent explanation.

In the past few months Facebook cracked down on what it is calling “insincere likes.” A team from Facebook made this comment in this Space Daily post:

“We have recently increased our automated efforts to remove Likes on pages that may have been gained by means that violate our Facebook terms. These newly improved automated efforts will remove those Likes gained by malware, compromised accounts, deceived users or purchased bulk Likes.”

Because of the ‘herd mentality‘ people often feel more comfortable with a brand that has numerous likes.

Sure.

But “a Like that doesn’t come from someone truly interested in connecting with a page benefits no one,” Facebook said.

True.

It’s like inviting people you don’t know to your own birthday party just to impress people you do know. Consequently, the people you do know will realize what you’ve done, and you’ll lose their respect quite quickly.

Fake Followers on Twitter

I was approached by a video production company for a project recently. While doing my due diligence and visiting the company’s Twitter page, I was surprised to see that a relatively new business had over 25,000 Twitter followers.

There were two explanations:

1. This guy had a ton of friends who believe in him.

2. He bought followers.

Just perusing his followers list, I noticed nearly all the profiles looked like this one:

A profile that has no tweets, no picture, and no followers is a clear sign that this guy (and probably his whole business) may be disingenuous.

The Solution

Develop online relationships similarly to developing offline relationships. Connect with people and offer value to them and they will want to connect with you.